John Evelyn Denison had sat in the House for more than thirty years when, in 1857, he was chosen Speaker. Nevertheless, he was awed by the responsibilities of the Chair. In such a position timorousness or irresolution would be fatal. To Denison the prospect was not made less formidable by the reply which he got from his predecessor on inquiring whether there was anyone to whom he could go for advice and assistance on trying occasions. “No one,” said Shaw-Lefevre; “you must learn to rely entirely upon yourself.” “And,” proceeds Denison in his Diary, “I found this to be very true. Sometimes a friend would hasten to the Chair and offer advice. I must say, it was for the most part lucky I did not follow the advice. I spent the first few years of my Speakership like the captain of a steamer on the Thames, standing on the paddle-box, ever on the look-out for shocks and collisions.” But these “shocks and collisions” are rarely uncommon or unfamiliar. The House of Commons has not had a life and growth of several centuries without providing an abundance of precepts and examples for the guidance of its Speaker. Very little happens in the House of Commons that has not happened there often before. Almost every contingency that can possibly arise is covered by a precedent, and if a Speaker be but acquainted with the forms and procedure of the House and the rulings of his predecessors, both of which hedge his course, he cannot go far astray. Nor is it the fact that there is no one to whom he can go for advice. It is the custom for Members to give the Speaker private notice of questions on points of order; unless, of course, such as spring up unexpectedly in debate; and for aid in the decision of these questions the Speaker has not only the clerks who sit at the Table below him to refer to, if necessary, as to custom and procedure, but also a counsel outside to direct him on points of law. “I used to study the business of the day carefully every morning,” says Denison, “and consider what questions could arise upon it. Upon these questions I prepared myself by referring to the rules, or, if needful, to precedents.” It is also the practice for the clerks to have an audience with the Speaker every day before the House meets, to draw his attention to points of order that are likely to arise, and to confer with him generally on the business of the day. Therefore it is a rare experience for the Speaker to be brought suddenly face to face with an unprecedented situation. And in such a difficulty he has the advantage of being able, as the supreme authority in the House, to impose his ruling unquestioned on all concerned, even should he have gone beyond his exact functions and powers as the director of debate, the preserver of order, the guardian of the rights of Members. Mr. Speaker Lowther was asked, May 14, 1920, how a mistake he might make could be redressed. His reply, greeted with loud laughter, was “The Chair, like the Pope, is infallible.”
It must not be supposed, however, that smooth and easy is the way of the President of the House of Commons. The whole art of the Speakership does not consist in presenting a dignified, ceremonial figure, in wig and gown, on a carved and canopied Chair, and having a mastery of the technicalities of procedure. The situation that tests most severely the mettle of the Speaker is one that not infrequently arises in the House of Commons, when there is what the newspapers call “a scene,” and he is expected to stand forth on the dais of the Chair the one calm, serious, stern and impartial personality, looming above the noise and recrimination which arises from the benches below. It is not cleverness that is then the indispensable quality in a Speaker. More to the purpose, for the controlling and the moderating of the passions of a popular assembly, are the superficial gifts of an impressive presence, an air of authority, a ready tongue, and a resonant voice. Still, the control of the House in such an emergency will depend not so much upon the appearance, the temperament, the elocution of Mr. Speaker, as upon the measure of the confidence and respect of Members which he has previously won by more sterling qualities; and the qualities upon which the trust of the House of Commons in its Speaker reposes most securely and abidingly are strength of character, fairness of mind, urbanity of temper, or a combination of tactful firmness with strict impartiality.
No doubt it is difficult for the Speaker to appear impartial at all moments and to all sections of the House. Some passing feeling of soreness will inevitably be felt by Members censured, or placed at a disadvantage in Party engagements, by decisions of the Chair. But if the Speaker has not impressed the House generally with his discretion and judgment, with confidence in the impartiality of his rulings, with the conviction that he regards himself as the guardian of the House, and not the auxiliary of the Government in getting business done, that feeling of soreness will not be, as it ought to be, brief and transient, and the Speaker will find on a crucial occasion that the Assembly has passed from his control.
Even so, the Speaker must not be too stern in action or demeanour. I have witnessed many violent scenes in the House of Commons, and I have invariably noticed that, in a clash of will and tempers, genial expostulation by the Chair is most potent in the restoration of order. Disraeli said of Denison that even “the rustle of his robes,” as he rose to rebuke a breach of order, was sufficient to awe the unruly Member into submission. But Members are not disposed to forget that, after all, the Speaker is but the servant of the House. There was once a very proud and haughty Speaker, Sir Edward Seymour by name, in the reign of Charles II. “You are too big for the Chair and for us,” said a Member smarting under a reprimand or a ruling. “For you, that think yourself one of the governors of the world, to be our servant is incongruous.” The Speaker must not be too fastidious or impatient with the commonplace or the eccentric. He should have a genial tolerance of the extravagant in personality and character, which is certain to appear in company of 707 men, chosen from all classes and all parts of the kingdom, and which, indeed, makes the House of Commons a place of infinite interest, abounding in humour and comedy. Moreover, the House will not tolerate the despot or the master in an officer of its own creation. Indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that the Speaker wields unfettered authority, that his individual will is law in the House of Commons. It is true that his controlling powers are great, and that his rulings on points of order and procedure are final. But the will which he imposes upon the House is not his own: it is the law of the House itself, for everything he does must be in accordance with rule and precedent.
2
But suppose a Speaker, who, of course, puts his own interpretation on precedents and Standing Orders, ultimately finds that he has made a wrong ruling, what ought he to do in the way of rectifying it? Thomas Moore relates in his Diary an extraordinary discussion on this point with Manners-Sutton after dinner one evening in 1829 at the Speaker’s house. “Dwelt much on the advantages of humbug,” writes Moore, in reference to Manners-Sutton; “of a man knowing how to take care of his reputation, and to keep from being found out, so as always to pass for cleverer than he is.” Moore says he himself argued that this denoted a wise man, not a humbug. If by that line of policy a man induced his fellow-men to give him credit for being cleverer than he really was, the fault could not be his, so long as he did not himself advance any claim to it as his due. The moment he pretended to be what he was not, then began humbug, but not sooner. The poet then goes on:
He still pushed his point, playfully, but pertinaciously, and in illustration of what he meant put the following case: “Suppose a Speaker rather new to his office, and a question brought into discussion before him which Parties are equally divided upon, and which he sees will run to very inconvenient lengths if not instantly decided. Well, though ignorant entirely on the subject, he assumes an air of authority, and gives his decision, which sets the matter at rest. On going home he finds that he has decided quite wrongly; and then, without making any further fuss about the business, he quietly goes and alters the entry on the Journals.”
Moore again insisted that wisdom, and not humbug, was the characteristic of such an action. “To his supposed case all I had to answer,” the poet writes, “was that I still thought the man a wise one, and no humbug; by his resolution in a moment of difficulty he prevented a present mischief, and by his withdrawal of a wrong precedent averted a future one.”
There are only two instances of the action of a Speaker being made the subject of a motion of censure, followed by a division. In neither case, however, was the motion carried. On July 11, 1879, Charles Stewart Parnell moved a vote of censure on Mr. Speaker Brand on the ground that he had exceeded his duty in directing the clerks at the Table to take notes of the speeches of the Nationalist Members, then inaugurating their policy of obstructing the proceedings of the House. The motion was lost by 421 votes to 29, or a majority of 392—one of the largest recorded in the history of Parliament. The Irish Members were also the movers of the other vote of censure on the Speaker. On March 20, 1902, Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, speaking on the concluding stages of the South African War, quoted a saying of Vilonel, the Boer General, that the enemies of South Africa were those who were continuing a hopeless struggle. “He is a traitor,” interjected John Dillon, the Irish Nationalist, and Chamberlain retorted; “The hon. gentleman is a good judge of traitors.” Dillon appealed to the Chair whether the expression of the Colonial Secretary was not unparliamentary. “I deprecate interruptions and retorts,” replied Mr. Speaker Gully, “and if the hon. gentleman had not himself interrupted the right hon. gentleman, he would not have been subjected to a retort.” “Then I desire to say that the right hon. gentleman is a damned liar!” exclaimed Dillon. He was thereupon “named” by the Speaker, and, on the motion of Arthur Balfour, was suspended from the service of the House. On May 7th J. J. Mooney, a Member of the Irish Party, moved that the Speaker ought to have ruled that the words applied by the Colonial Secretary to Dillon were unparliamentary, and accordingly have directed Chamberlain to withdraw them. On a division the action of the Chair was supported by 398 votes to 63, or a majority of 335.